We all know about the 2000 election scandal or at least we should. The one where bush was handed the election despite having less overall votes compared to gore. The one where despite there having been a major miscount in the state of florida a swing state that bush won. The supreme court didn't allow a recount. One that was likely to favor gore and his presidency. Skip forward to 2008 and the republican primaries with likes of john mcain, mitt romney, and mike huckabee as the main contenders for the republican nomination. A 4th canidate ron pual made an impact in the primary as well. He didn't gain many votes but was the first notable libertarian to make a run in a while. So obama gets elected and he's the first liberal president we had since the reagan era of politics began. The backlash among conservatives was unheard of in politics. He pushed through major reforms and the GOP coallessed. They took back the house and almost the senate. The tea party formed cause they believe that these programs made raising taxes inevitable. Also that the budget is out of control and must be reigned in. Leading this coalition first was ron paul. Who traditionally was against many of the common gop views. That leads us into the 2012 election. If you knew me since I mentioned the words tea party that I'd hate ron paul but I don't. He was a republican that belived in common sense not pandering to a base. He was consistent in his views. At this point because of first obama's policies then second a congress in 2010 that didn't do anything even with republican majority. The anti-establishment had finally grown and pual had a base. The thing is to the establishment he's dangerous. On both parties. He wanted us out of the middle east and just not involved with other countries in general cause he believed wars in the middle east were clearly benefitting military contractor and had destabilized the region while our country continues to climb in debt. Since he wasn't backed by wall street like the rest he talked furiously about the injustices. About how we never should've bailed out the banks. And how that money should've gone too people who were actually affected and whose homes were taken. No one else opposed wall street and people were fed up. This scared establishment. Those billionares in defense oil and banking also hold a large hand in the media. So despite consistently being 2nd in polls his campaign was not talked about nor listened too in every major media source. From msnbc to fox news. Those media companies are owned by some of the richest men in america and ron would actually be working to bring down. He didn't have a single person following his campaign and reporting on it. While the others had at least one from every news out let. The constantly excluded him from poll numbers and even misread his poll numbers. They tried to keep him out of questions in the debate. He had a following though and interestingly enough it was a young one. Mostly college students. Unheard of among republicans at the time. He went to college campuses and talked in front of thousands of enthusiastic followers. Sound familiar (I'm alluding to a similarity with bernie sanders). So he continued to be a strong contender despite media ignoring him and only talking rarely to bash him. That was bad enough that media discreditted him. Now lets got to the actual GOP. They couldn't just take him off the ballot that would've been disastrous for them. In a way though they did. There's the scandal of waldo county in maine. It is required by law there that the entire ballot and vote count for every town and county be published so it was weird when four or five different counties had zero votes tallied. Keep in mind there are only 16 counties in maine. With one county though we found out a little more. In waldo county where the ballots where in paper had to be transferred to an electronic database. The person in charge of digitizing those votes was a member of the romney campaign. They even told one of the people sending in the votes for waldo county not to look at the results just send it in so he wouldn't notice when they were altered. He did look though and it showed a clear win in his county for ron paul. they also initially entered in changed results and the man challenged them so they put in nothing. Now those records were able to be seen by the public. Thing is that's not the case for every state the gop is in charge of it. Ron paul had a serious chance of winning the primary and his appeal could've won him the white house. Now the people at the top have worked so hard to keep it from happening. The gop has grown a bigger anti-establishment wing. A group that is funded by the same people and have the same ideas and are a little more extreme can't work with other people and are ruining congress. That's become his tea party legacy. He has publicly gone against them and opposed them. It's too late though. Now in this election everyone thinks that the establishment is scared and they are but obviously not as much. Cause even if ted cruz or donald trump gets the primary vote and they don't win they sure won't try to undermine the corruption there a part of. Bernie Sanders though he runs a lot of paralels. His war on washington actually has credibility and isn't funded by super pacs. When he started everyone ignored bernie. Every one said he doesn't stand a chance they declared hillary had one and even when he rose thirty points in two months he was given no media coverage at all. He had to grow his following online on social media a place billionares couldn't censor him. Fox news instead of bashing him like they do every other candidate especially hillary. In the one or two times I can even find them mentioning bernie they've made fun of him laughed him off. John Kaisch did it the other night at the GOP debate when asked if bernie was a contender. He not only laughed he said republicans would win every single state. Keep in mind a couple things. Kaisch is polling at 2% in his party bernie sanders is at 41% in his party. In theorhetical head to head match ups he beats every republican canidate and by a greater margin than hillary. If you ask me therte trying to question his electibility to voters so they vote clinton. For two reasons they have a better chance of beating hillary and they have nothing on sanders. They can't attack him on anything. He's the most authentic and consistent candidate in either party. They are scared and the sad thing is for a little bit it worked. I have always believed in sander's message and I only doubted him for a little bit because I thought he might not be electable and I let biased media influence me. Now there message doesn't influence me. Now the overall point is how the power of greed and wealth can influence the media and how the media can negatively influence us. Back in the gilded age the rich influenced in a more direct way with bribes directly to voters. A lot of that is now illegal. Yet the rich always find loopholes and nowadays they like to be more subtle with there approach. So people are fed up but in many cases don't research and educated themselfs as to why there fed up and I think every one should. Is there anything we can do though well these days there is. With social media promotion can be free and your ideas can spread. We can call out the powerful on their BS and be activist for change. I hope that this generation can make change so we don't repeat the problems of this country's past. Thank you. Also watch the Democratic Debate tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_WBo4sfmi4
NOTE this first video is very conspiracy theory like so take it with a grain of salt but it does show many injustices in our current political system.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/02/16/how-ron-paul-may-have-won-and-lost-maine/
This post talks a bit about the injustices in maine in a more unbiased way
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